Robofest Mentoring and Coaching Programs to Maximize Pedagogical Values

 

Lawrence Technological University’s Robofest has developed a unique and effective process to maximize students’ learning. Robofest encourages students, rather than coaches and mentor, to do all of the building and programming.  Robofest has done much observation and research of other robotics contests and has found that currently some robotics contest do not motivate students to learn because the students are not doing the actual hands on building or programming; instead, robots are being designed, built, and programmed by adults. For example, one competition actually encourages professional engineers to do the job. In some cases, students are just puppeteers with joy-stick controllers. In another contest, there were numerous cases that parents did all or most of the jobs that students should be doing. Students were just pressing the green start button at the competition. One contest has recognized the problem and they introduced a “Coach Honor Code” for the first time in 2005. Many of these contests do not have practical mechanisms to check if students are really capable of solving robotics problems by themselves without adults’ assistance.  Robofest has unique mechanisms that assure students are learning the technologies.

 

In order to maximize students’ learning and confidence, Robofest introduced the following mechanisms:

 

• Unknown tasks: some parts of the mission are unveiled at the beginning of the competition day during opening ceremonies.
• No adults are allowed in the pit area: Absolutely no adult is allowed in the pit area during the contest; students must do the problem solving on their own.
• Unknown shape of playing fields: the exact dimension and shape is also unveiled at the beginning of the competition day. Even, some conditions of the playing fields are changing during the game. Students must know how to adjust/adapt their programs by themselves.
• Public presentation: Judges will ask questions and they need to answer in front of the public
• Source code inspection: Judges will inspect source code and will ask questions to students

 

We understand that each team needs good technical mentors and coaches. Since Robofest has started in historically industrialized area, Metro Detroit, we found there were many parents who are professional engineers. They were capable of teaching young students and were enjoying doing that. However, we found also, many teams and schools were in need of technical support and mentoring. In order to support Robotics teams and schools that support robotics programs, Lawrence Tech Robofest has committed to provide the following mentoring and coaching programs.

 

Free Hands-on workshops 

 

Almost every Saturday each spring, Lawrence Tech has provided free hands-on technical workshop. We have taught Handy Board, Lego RCX code, Lego RoboLab, NQC, LeJos Java for free open to the public. We estimate that over 1,000 students attended the free workshops since 2000. It was interesting to see that many parents were also learning robotics. We run summer robotics camps as well. Since 2004, some of the workshops were webcast and videoconference to reach people who could not come to the Lawrence Tech campus. Webcast versions of the workshops can be accessed as streaming videos at http://www.robofest.net/resources.htm.

 

Workshops for Teachers

 

We have provided hands-on robotics workshops for area teachers since 2000. The classes were supported by the Southfield School district and Macomb Intermediate School district. After the workshops, many teachers formed robotics teams in their schools.

 

Formal Robotics Classes for Teachers

 

Lawrence Technological University is starting a new program in January 2006: Master of Educational Technology with Robotics Concentration as a formal program for teachers. The rationale of the programs is to provide opportunity for educators to learn robotics technologies, to teach robotics in their classes, to be a technical mentor of robotics teams, and to earn a Masters degree and a technology (NP) endorsement from the State of Michigan.

 

On-site After School Programs for Underprivileged Schools in Detroit

 

With the support from CIS (Community in Schools), we provided an on-site after school robotics program at Cerveny Middle School in Detroit in 2002-2003. In 2004-2005, we provided robotics after school program to five Detroit charter schools by working together with SUCCOR. Based on the practical experience, we developed a formal on-site robotics program package that includes 18 contact hours of onsite robotics instruction and everything needed to support up to four Robofest teams.

 

Parent Based Mentoring

 

We do encourage each team to find as many technical mentors as possible. We found parents were the most important resource for the success of teams. Because of the unveiled missions, parents must really try to hard to teach concepts to students, not doing the job by themselves for students. They must also teach how to adapt/adjust their robots because of unknown and dynamic components of Robofest. In order to promote and encourage team mentoring, Robofest awards each team mentor a certificate together with a small gift, if their names were entered in the web-based Robofest management system online.

 

Mentoring Using IM

 

This is a new program only Robofest might be doing. IM (instant messaging) is very popular between tech-savvy youngsters. We are going to kick-off a new technical mentoring using AIM (AOL IM, AOL has the most IM users currently in the world). IM could be a very effective tool teaching online in synchronous mode. Current AIM id is Robofest and we plan to provide each ID for each specific subjects such as RCX code, RoboLab, NQC, IC, LeJos Java, EasyC, etc. We will announce office hours for the mentoring using AIM only to registered Robofest teams. Lawrence Tech professors, professional alumni, and qualified students will be the IM mentors.

Formal Curriculum

 

Through so many workshops and classes, we have developed many robotics curriculums since 2000. A professor on Sabbatical leave in the fall 2005 is developing and publishing formal curricular to serve Robofest teams. In addition, Robofest has been working together with Dr. Ken Berry, NSF funded RoboEducators, to setup a Robotics center in the Stat of Michigan.

 

 

High Tech Online Resources

 

Robofest maintains a web page with online resources related to robotics education at http://www.robofest.net/resources.htm. We will continue to provide more webcasts, videoconferences and streaming videos from the technical workshops that we offer. As mentioned earlier, mentoring using AIM would be an addition to show our commitment to serve young students. The entire formal curriculum will be also provided for free for Robofest teams online. We plan to produce various formats of the online/CD curriculum: in PDF, HTML, PPT, and Macromedia Captivate versions.

 

Coaching

 

Robofest team coaches are the essential part of Robofest. All coaches are registered on the Robofest management system. Coaches provide logistics to teams. Coaches schedule meetings and find mentors and volunteers. Coaches communicate directly to Robofest administrators through various ways such as emails, fax, teleconferencing, AIM, and meetings on Lawrence Tech campus. Since coaching robotics teams requires multi aspects of management and technological skills, we try to provide necessary tools, skills, information, and on-site tech support (some cases) for them. We recognize their effort by proving certificates as well as coach awards.

 

Evaluation and Assessment

 

Evaluation and assessment can be done using two systems developed for Robofest. One is the web based online survey system in which Robofest participants can answer survey questions and make comments anonymously. The other tool is the statistical report subsystem in the Robofest management system with all the Robofest data. Using the systems we were able to find much statistical data such as the total number of teams and students who entered Robofest competitions for each age group; boy girl ratio; and percentage of programming languages, etc. Additional reports can be developed or we could use an internal database query language for producing more statistical information.

 

 

 

Robofest home

10/17/05